They're trimmed, but these Goudeys are good enough

RIP David McCarty, who played eleven years in the major leagues. He shared his thoughts on baseball cards with this blog in 2009.

 

I got quite lucky with an eBay seller with a bunch of 1933 Goudeys. I ended up with 9 for $27, a very good price considering there were three Hall of Famers. They are all missing the red bar that says "Big League Chewing Gum" but are still wonderful pieces of 90 year old cardboard. In person the colors really pop.

Sam Byrd was one of two Yankees I picked up. The back says he was on the "Yankess". It calls him "one of the best golfers in professional baseball" and he did go on to a long PGA career. In baseball he was known as "Babe Ruth's Legs", often pinch-running for the Bambino later in his legendary career. Chalmer Cissell's card notes that he was bought from the Portland Club for $123,000. I imagine Jon knows all about him. George Connally, one of several of these players born in the nineteenth century, was a soldier and marine according to the card back - "Fought in France during the World War".

Clifton Heathcote was a good-field, no-hit outfielder. He died just a few years after this card was published. Fred Lindstrom's card was in the Dover Reprint book of Hall of Famers when I was a kid, so I was really happy to get an original of the card. On the back of Bing Miller's card it is written "He is well-named. Any time he hits a ball it goes places."

Two more Hall of Famers here. About Sam Rice, Goudey wrote that he was not only a .300 hitter but "boy, can't he go and get 'em in the outfield!" Joe Sewell is now my oldest Yankee Hall of Fame card. He was a star for Cleveland for many years but ended his career with three seasons with the Yankees, winning a World Series in 1932. Tommy Thevenow's career was marred by two serious injuries, as related on the back of his card - first a broken leg during a game, then "he was badly smashed up in an automobile accident".

Even trimmed I am really enjoying these cards and was happy to add them to my collection.